#interesting mammals

[whatnext10]

Armadillos Don’t See Well, but They Have a Great Nose

Taking a Break On one of my recent trips to Watermelon Pond a pretty little nine banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) found me. I was hiking through the woods towards the water when it happened along. I say it found me because it came out of some heavy underbrush into the more open area where I was walking. It looked around, never saw me, and began to follow its nose around in search for some…

[serpentface]

The wassibi, threatening you with a very bad time.

Wassibi are mid-sized (11-16 lb) solitary mustelids. This species is native throughout the lands south of the Viper seaway, thriving as generalists in a great diversity of habitats (though rarely occur in very arid environments or at high elevations). They are omnivores, using their broad noses and strong claws to dig out earthworms, beetle larvae, roots and tubers, foraging along the ground for insects, scorpions, bird eggs, fallen fruit, and small lizards and snakes, and occasionally scavenging carcasses and trash. They are particularly noted for their ability to find honey- splitting open bees nests with their claws and leisurely consuming larvae and honeycomb, seemingly untroubled by bee stings.

Wassibi are known above all else for their devastatingly noxious defensive anal gland spray. When threatened, they hiss, arch their backs and tails, raise their fur, and point their anus menacingly in the direction of danger. Should posturing fail, they will unleash their spray at the threat's face. Their anal glands have powerful muscular control and the attack is devastatingly accurate at up to 10 ft. In addition to having an atrocious stench, the liquid is mildly irritating to the skin, painful and temporarily blinding to the eyes, and can induce intense nausea and vomiting. The smell is resistant to washing, and can take weeks to fade. Most predators who experience a hit will learn to recognize the wassibi's stark aposematic coloring and avoid anything resembling it.

In addition to this potent defensive weaponry, they have dense fur and thick, loose skin, which renders them difficult for most predators to effectively grasp or pierce without risk of being bitten themselves. As such, wassibi have few consistent natural predators and are given a wide birth by most other animals. Their tendency to walk boldly in the open and sometimes even scavenge at carcasses alongside much larger predators commonly lends them cultural reputations of fearlessness. Wassibi are known for attacking large venomous snakes that potentially threaten their young, which (along with their frequent consumption of scorpions and bees) leads to common misconceptions that they are entirely immune to venom. They have no such resistance, rather their thick fur and loose skin cause bites and stings to land less effectively- most stings fail to penetrate their fur altogether, and bites often deal glancing blows that inject little to no venom.

Their biggest predatory threats come from humans. Wassibi meat is fairly rich and not unappealing to most palates used to wild game, but they are rarely considered worth the effort and risk of killing for consumption alone. They are more commonly hunted for their pelts (worn commonly by Wogan and North Wardi herders in hopes of deterring attacks from predators), bones, claws, and fat (used in traditional medicine for their purported antivenom properties). This hunting is fairly limited in scope overall, and most Wassibi populations remain stable.

[mstormcloud]

I think applying tropes commonly found in Sonadow fics to other sonic ships is very funny

Like today I saw the cute posts by Blu-ish about how hedgehogs circle and headbutt eachother when courting and how Sonic and Shadow would do that and I agree.

However I think the implication that mobian hedgehogs do this is HILARIOUS when applied to ships that only involve one hedgehog.

Like Silver starts circling around Espio one day and lightly shoving him with his hip or his shoulder and Espio is like: ???? What are you doing??

Or even Blazamy like- Amy keeps circling Blaze and the less Blaze reciprocates Amy does it more to try to get Blaze to react. Blaze eventually just tries to politely tell Amy to stop cause it’s hard to hold conversation while she’s moving all around.

But later Blaze talks to Silver and is like: “I have no idea what she is trying to do…perhaps she is finding a weakness in my stance? Should I fear her hunting me for sport???”

And Silver is like: uh. Well. I think she’s hitting on you? It’s a hedgehog thing.

And Blaze just freaks out because WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMY WAS FLIRTING WITH HER

[respect-the-locals]

🐬 Daily Cetacean Fact: 🐬

Pygmy Killer Whale: The pygmy killer whale is a poorly known and rarely seen oceanic dolphin. It derives its common name from sharing some physical characteristics with the Orca. It is the smallest cetacean species that has the word "whale" in its common name. Although the species has been known to be extremely aggressive in captivity, this aggressive behavior has not been observed in the wild.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Having a normal time (debating on whether or not time lords can be classified as mammals)

[smellybead]

Leopard seal stuff from the past couple of days hehedhfejbubefu4hehebehy4

hehdhehsdhdebujhbsvjhbjwhbvjhbsdvjhbjhbvrwjhbsvdjhbjhbdfsjhbvdsjhbvdsbhjdsvjhbdvsbjhdvsjhbvdsjhbvdsjhvv

[crybaby-bkg]

just read from my psych of sex class that studies show exotic dancers who did lap dances while ovulating received more tips than those who were on birth control and ovulating. this is giving me many thoughts will return later 🏃🏽‍♂️

[diehellasrache]

This is our new small son Pancake Augustus Surname-Surname, he weighs two pounds and is quite difficult to photograph

[vimbry-moved]

just honest to god adore those deconstructed concepts in the lyrics like "glass of milk, standing in-between extinction in the cold" as a descriptor for mammals and the function they're named for, "flammable undiagrammable sentiments pass between animal beings" to mean sparks fly during romantic chemistry, and "newborn citizenship of the micronations" referring to reproducing and new offspring, like. like! like!!!

[ace-and-ranty]

Saw one of them Reddit posts, "What food makes you think, 'How did humans figure out this was edible?!'"

Plenty of cool answers, mainly discussing highly toxic foods that need a lot of processing to be safe.

And then a bunch of people said milk.

MILK.

You are wondering how we figured out. We could drink milk.

HOW DID MAMMALS.

FIGURED OUT.

WE COULD DRINK.

MILK.

[flirts-with-dragons]

Ok so can I talk about how fucking absurd platypuses are

You got a creature that looks like duck

Lays eggs like a turtle

And is a fucking mammal????

And it's the silliest looking thing ever

You can watch live wildlife cameras of them just zooming through the water so damn fast

And they can KILL YOU WITH POISON

They're just the silliest goofiest animal of all time and I need everyone to appreciate the full glory of the platypus

[johnnyslittleanimalblog]

Jasmina yawning  by Tambako The Jaguar Via Flickr:

[pine-arten]

i spent all yesterday making a semi-realistic slugcat base. i used sphinx cats as a reference, so they’re pretty cat like here

 i imagine they hold themselves different than an actual cat though, plus more robust shoulders for bipedal-ism

this is the survivor btw :) i think i’ll do monk next

[robbie-roo]

hi would you like to perhaps trade modern animal facts for dinosaur facts.........

WOULD I????

Did you know cats have whiskers on their feet it's right up near their topmost toe it helps them figure out where to pounce when hunting

Shrews are cool as FUCK so because they are so small they need to have a very high metabolism- small body = loses heat faster some of them are as small as almonds!!! they are incredibly powerful hunters and can hold a territory that can be up to over 600 yards!!!! they have to eat a LOT to keep up with their high metabolism so when they hunt they will kill something and leave it there if they manage to catch something else before they finish eating and only once they no longer have any prey to catch will they eat their stockpile, the bodies of their kills are usually stacked up together. Shrews also have super fast heart and breath rates they lose heat super fast and their heart can be up to 800 bpm and their breath up to 500/minute Shrews live in high altitude and climates so how are they keeping their body warm? they use the snow as an insulater! they'll burrow under the snow and use it as a way to keep the heat inside their tunnels. when a shrew is pregnant they will eat a lot more a 7lb shrew will eat 8lbs of food for example- and their milk can shift through lactation for nutrition (colostrum and weaning milk for example)

speaking of reproduction- just like bees male mouse opossums will die right after mating- as they reach their sexual maturity they will go into overdrive they won't eat and have a very high stress level males of this species very rarely survive more than a year

you might know that all animals (aside from primates/humans) have an extra layer in the back of their eye called the tapetum lucidum, this is what eye shine is ot helps soak in light when in the dark

speaking of vision teehee

only primates have trichromatic vision most mammals only have dichromatic vision where they lack the cone rods to see green/yellow colors

ok so hearing right? so most animals other than us have pinna which makes it so their ears can move towards sound but mammals also hear different frequencies like I'm sure you've heard about how cats talk to their kittens in a different way than older cats? humans do that too! when we use baby talk for pets or children but some animals speak out of our frequencies entirely for example mice will sing to each other to find mates!

OK more specific animal facts- beavers are SICK ok so their skulls look like this

see that giant open space behind their front teeth? they use that space to suck in their cheeks to create a blockage and make sure they don't get wood chips down their throat when chomping on trees for their dams

bats have little tiny bumps on their wings for wind turbulence

some fish have electroreception which is when you can sense electric currents by other organisms with like open channels on their cells but so can MOLES!!!

baby cheetas are born with extra fur and slightly different markings to look more like Hyena pups so that they are less likely to be attacked by them

speed round- farm edition (because I was an animal educator at a farm for years)

goats are immune to poison ivy and you can still drink their milk after

horses only breathe through their nose they can't breathe from their mouths

domestic sheep HAVE to be sheared every year as they will just continue to grow wool forever and ever until death

llamas are super clean animals a llama herd will designate one specific area for pooping they're also super good guard animals and are used to kill foxes going after chickens sometimes

emus can run 31mph (the one I worked with named Mu was also mean as hell but they can be super sweet)

bunnies sleep with their eyes open as they are prey animals they also will almost always poop as they are eating and must be eating or at least offered food nearly 24/7 or they will die similar to a shrew

goat horns are connected directly to their skulls and they LOVE when you scratch in-between them for them :)

most animals have a baculum (penis bone) except us and herbivores [that was an adult group fact not a children group fact]

I'll leave it there for now but I always have more >:)